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Power must be used, but it must be tempered by soul-searching and the recognition of our human capacity for error. That is the maxim that should inform our approach to every challenge, from reforming state government to engaging in foreign affairs.

Eliot Spitzer

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Eliot Spitzer
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: June 10
Former Governor Of New York
Lawyer
Politician
New York City
New York
The Sheriff of Wall Street
Every
Power
Affair
Maxim
Used
Foreign
Inform
States
Errors
Maxims
Government
Challenge
Engaging
Soul
Capacity
Searching
Human
Approach
Affairs
Humans
Challenges
Error
Reforming
Must
State
Recognition
Tempered

More quotes by Eliot Spitzer

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The irony is that it was tougher to rent a car from Cerberus when it owned Alamo than to buy a semi-automatic. To rent a car, one had to provide ID, a drivers' license, and get insurance coverage. To buy a gun? Cash and carry, from the back of a station wagon at a gun show. No concerns about downstream liability or risk.
Eliot Spitzer
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It's time to let science and medicine, not politics and rhetoric, lead us to good, sound policy.
Eliot Spitzer
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It's not Big Brother that we now have to be afraid of, but Big Browser.
Eliot Spitzer
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I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.
Eliot Spitzer
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I don't have any particular expertise-I've never been a banker or an investment banker. But I did see an evolution in the system that I thought was problematic.
Eliot Spitzer
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Don't reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a 'moral hazard,' because the bailout absolved the bank's bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.
Eliot Spitzer
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Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.
Eliot Spitzer
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I stand before you today because this vision of government as the engine of opportunity is what I believe in.
Eliot Spitzer
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I think President Obama could have handled politics and policies differently. But he has been decisive, strong, and consistent - important qualities in a president. Mitt Romney is indeed an Etch A Sketch, the antithesis of leadership.
Eliot Spitzer
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Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail.
Eliot Spitzer
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We are all used to paying a sales tax when we buy things - almost 9 percent here in New York City. The application of this concept to the financial sector could solve our need for revenue, bring some sanity back into the financial sector, and give us a way to raise the revenue we need to run the government in a fiscally responsible way.
Eliot Spitzer
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The Republican argument that raising the debt ceiling encourages additional future spending is logically irresponsible. The debt ceiling has to be raised to authorize spending already approved by Congress. Despite that fallacy, the GOP has been able to score political points with its argument.
Eliot Spitzer
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After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society.
Eliot Spitzer
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Companies that pollute should be taxed so that a product's cost to society is reflected in the price of that product.
Eliot Spitzer
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Yes, people pull the trigger - but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror.
Eliot Spitzer
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A significant piece of the wealth that the NFL owners garner is a result of the enormous TV revenues they get - and those revenues are supported by a legislatively granted exemption from the antitrust laws that has been made applicable to sports leagues, primarily the NFL.
Eliot Spitzer
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Delay is the enemy of progress.
Eliot Spitzer
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Mitt Romney's primary season embrace of the social and economic agenda of the more rabid elements of his party doomed him, especially the shrill immigration rhetoric and the harshly insensitive theory that no additional sacrifice or contribution should be sought from those at the top.
Eliot Spitzer
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Tax rates for the wealthy should revert to Clinton-era levels, both because it is necessary for long-term deficit reduction and because fairness dictates it. Moreover, there is no proof that higher marginal rates dissuade investment, all the rhetoric from the Right notwithstanding.
Eliot Spitzer
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The pace of global warming is accelerating and the scale of the impact is devastating. The time for action is limited - we are approaching a tipping point beyond which the opportunity to reverse the damage of CO2 emissions will disappear.
Eliot Spitzer